LCM-UA Home Page

Thank you for visiting our website. Please come join us this Fall at one of our weekly events. We are located at the Campus Christian Center between Jimmy John's sandwich shop and First United Methodist Church on Park Ave just south of University Drive. Click here for detailed directions and map of our location.

From the Pastor – Easter Season Spring Semester 2008

“Stay with us, till night has come: our praise to you this day be sung
Bless our bread, open out eyes, Jesus be our great surprise.” (WOV # 743)

Stay with Us is one of my favorite hymns of the Easter season. It springs from the Walk to Emmaus story (Luke 24:13-25) on Easter evening. Cleopas and another disciple walk for miles without recognizing the risen Christ. Their hearts burn within them, they have a good Bible study with this stranger, they even catch up on the days startling events. But they just don’t understand who they are talking to, even though he is hidden in plain sight.

Until, at supper, when they are resting from the long walk and the day is nearly over, Jesus blesses and breaks the loaf of bread. “Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him.”

Each Wednesday LCM students gather for Vespers (the Bread of Life) and supper (the bread of life).
They come from the music building, the chem. Lab, the School of Nursing, the Student Union, the Rec Center. Some have even gone home for the day, maybe even gotten some studying done. But they come back to the Campus Christian Center for the evening. They are drawn - to be with friends, to be refreshed for the second half of the week, to receive the bread and Bread of life.

I’m thankful that Jesus stays with us on these Wednesday evenings – Holden Evening Prayer, discussion, presentations, meditation, and mealtime. And I’m thankful that others beyond the walls of this ministry stay with us too – the Grand Canyon Synod, individual donors, congregations who give beyond their regular benevolence, parents of current and former LCM students, alumni, the ELCA. This wider cloud of witnesses is the presence of the risen Christ that sees to it this ministry takes place.

We’re on the home stretch of the semester. Seniors graduating, and others moving on. It’s nice to know that on the many roads to Emmaus in this wide world, Jesus still walks with those who call to him.

Happy Easter,
Pastor Ron Rude
rhrude47@yahoo.com

We at Lutheran Campus Ministry at the University of Arizona are blessed to be surrounded by the diverse group of people that thrives on our campus. In serving this community, LCM welcomes all students, faculty, and staff who seek to love God and participate in an open and supportive community based on the example and teachings of Jesus Christ. We especially invite those who may not feel welcome in other churches. We confess that as a community we are not perfect in our love. We seek to become more fully loving of people of all identities, and we welcome all who wish to join us in this journey. Taking steps towards this goal we are a Reconciling in Christ ministry, which recognizes and affirms persons of all sexual orientations and gender identities (www.lcna.org). We also support the social justice positions of the University of Arizona (www.arizona.edu). Thanks be to God for the blessings we have received and for the differences we share!